ng as the ground
retains a few remnants of the vernal rains, this rude vegetation does
not lack a certain charm, when the pyramids of the oyster plant and the
slender branches of the cotton thistle rise above the wide carpet formed
by the yellow-flowered centaury saffron heads; but let the droughts of
summer come and we see but a desolate waste, which the flame of a match
would set ablaze from one end to the other. Such is, or rather was,
when I took possession of it, the Eden of bliss where I mean to live
henceforth alone with the insect. Forty years of desperate struggle have
won it for me.

Eden, I said; and, from the point of view that interests me, the
expression is not out of place. This cursed ground, which no one would
have had at a gift to sow with a pinch of turnip seed, is an earthly
paradise for the bees and wasps. Its mighty growth of thistles and
centauries draws them all to me from everywhere around. Never, in my
insect hunting memories, have I seen so large a population at a single
spot; all the trades have made it their rallying point. Here come
hunters of every kind of game, builders in clay, weavers of cotton
goods, collectors of pieces cut from a leaf or the petals of a flower,
architects in pasteboard, plasterers mixing mortar, carpenters
boring wood, miners digging underground galleries, workers handling
goldbeater's skin and many more.

Who is this one? An Anthidium [a tailor bee]. She scrapes the cobwebby
stalk of the yellow-flowered centaury and gathers a ball of wadding
which she carries off proudly in the tips of her mandibles. She will
turn it, under ground, into cotton felt satchels to hold the store of
honey and the egg. And these others, so eager for plunder? They are
Megachiles [leaf-cutting bees], carrying under their bellies their
black, white or blood red reaping brushes. They will leave the thistles
to visit the neighboring shrubs and there cut from the leaves oval
pieces which will be made into a fit receptacle to contain the harvest.
And these, clad in black velvet? They are Chalicodomae [mason bees], who
work with cement and gravel. We could easily find their masonry on the
stones in the harmas. And these noisily buzzing with a sudden flight?
They are the Anthophorae [wild bees], who live in the old walls and the
sunny banks of the neighborhood.

Now come the Osmiae. One stacks her cells in the spiral staircase of an
empty snail shell; another, attacking the pith of a dry bit of